The Dream Demon
by AislinnDevan
Summary: Kagome has these awful dreams spawned by a new demon, the Dream Demon. These dreams have made her ill once, and Inuyasha and Kaede suspect they will make her ill again, or maybe even kill her. Disclaimer to all chapters: I don't own the characters. I wish
1. Kagome's Illness

The Dream Demon

Summary

Kagome has these awful dreams spawned by a new demon, the Dream Demon. These dreams have made her ill once, and Inuyasha and Kaede suspect they will make her ill again, or maybe even kill her.

Chapter 1

Modern Day Japan

My alarm clock falls off my desk, the final alert I need to get me out of bed. I throw my legs over the side of the mattress, pulling my coverlet away from its crumpled position between my body imprint and the wall. I set my feet on the floor and nearly fall. All week I'd been sick, still attending school and still sick.

I lean against my bed for support, then catch a slight chill and wrap my coverlet around me. The long train of the material follows me from my bed to my desk, where I stoop to pick up my fallen clock. I collect my clothes and head down the hall to the bathroom, only to get stopped by my mother.

"Kagome, you look like death!"

I look at my mom through bleary eyes. "It's those dreams again, Mom. They kept me up all night last week, and I got sick, and they come and go with the fever now."

"Fever!" Mom rushes up to me and lays her hand against my forehead. I always wondered what good that did. I mean, what if your hand was already hot and you take that into too much consideration and you let a fever go unnoticed? Or say your hand was too cold and you couldn't feel . . .

"You're burning up, child. Go," she says, shoo-ing me back to my bedroom. "Back to bed with you. Sota!" she calls to my younger brother. "I'm taking you to school today. Kagome's ill so she can't walk you."

"Okay, Mom!" the boy answers from the kitchen.

I hear my grandfather's voice from the same place. "Kagome, go out to the well later and pray. The fresh air and faith will cure you."

Mom rolls her eyes in the way that most of her jaded generation do when faith is brought up. "You may go if you feel up to it, Kagome, but get dressed first before you go out. Rest a little while before also, okay, girl?" She brushes her hand against my flushed cheek. "Maybe faith will do you some good, at least until I can get to the pharmacy after work."

I am sweating by the time I reach the well. The exertion I used nearly zaps my strength, but I cling to the well's opening with tumultuous fingers. I raise myself up and begin chanting a prayer. My hands shake uncontrollably then slip from the edge, tumbling me forward into the deep abyss of the well. "Inuyasha!" I scream as I fall, hoping he hears me in time to catch me before I land on the feudal era ground on the other side of the well.

Feudal Era Japan

"Inuyasha!"

The owner of the name turns sharply toward the direction of the well, his little inu-ears trying to rotate toward the sound. "Kagome," he whispers, and runs to the edge. He hops down into the well in time to catch her as she falls up then down again.

"You're so hot, Kagome. Is there something wrong?" Inuyasha sniffs down my length as he cradles me in his arms.

"I'm sick," I tell him.

"Sick?"

"Ill? Ailing? You know, unhealthy?"

Comprehension dawns on the hanyou's face like a rising sun. "Oh. Well, then, we'd better get you to Kaede's as fast as possible." He bounds out of the well in one leap and runs across the distance, covering it in a short timespan thanks to his half-demon parentage.

"Kagome!" Kaede calls as she runs out of her hut. "Are you injured? What did you do now, Inuyasha?"

"I did nothing," he defends curtly, and a bit snappishly if I do say so myself. "And she is not injured, per se. She's ailing."

"Oh well, I can cure that faster than any injury. Bring her in," Kaede invites, opening the flap of canvas that serves as the door to her and her deceased sister Kikyo's hut. Inuyasha sets me down gently on the matt spread across Kaede's sitting area. Kaede brings a little ceramic dish with a grinding tool. She adds hot water to the herbal mixture, making it smell a little like Green Tea. She holds the crucible to my lips and I drink the mixture, expecting it to vile like the tea I likened it to, but instead it tastes pleasant. I thank her just before my eyes roll to the back of my head.

"What's wrong with her, Kaede?" Inuyasha asks the old woman, the sister of his past lover. "Why is she sleeping?"

"She needs to sleep. That's the only reason why she was sick."

"Stupid girl," the hanyou mutters as he brushes a long lock of black hair off Kagome's cheek. "You didn't get enough sleep in your time. How do manage in this time?"

Kaede turns from collecting herbs in the garden right beyond the canvas door. "You have a lot of down-time between battles, Inuyasha. In her time she probably has no down-time and she must adjust to the different schedules. It is very hard to accomplish, and this practice of hers will eventually force her to choose the future or the past."

Inuyasha glances up from the sleeping girl. "She's going to have to choose?"

"Like I said, eventually. It could be in fifty years or it could be when she wakes up. I do not know. I do know that she will have to chose or kill herself trying to live a double life."


	2. Kagome Awakens

Chapter 2

There are butterflies flitting in and out of Kaede's hut. I follow one, an amber-colored one, with my eyes, then watch as another one joins it and follows at the same interval. I blink, and the butterflies get closer to my face. I blink again and they take an oval shape.

"Are you awake, Kagome?"

The sound of Inuyasha's voice frightens me so that I scream, "SIT BOY!"

He falls to the ground beside me, the gravitational force the Earth applies on us all seems to be applying itself extra on Inuyasha.

"Dammit, Kagome," he grunts.

The flap to the hut opens and three figures hurry in, followed by a little bouncy-ball of a creature. "What happened?" asks a young female voice, breathless.

"S-Sango?" I ask tentatively.

"Kagome? You're back!" She hurries to my matside, jumping over Inuyasha. "It's been what, two weeks since you've been here?"

"Just about that much," says the amorous monk Miroku as he kneels on the other side of the mat from Sango.

I feel a warm pressure land on my chest and try to focus on Shippo, the little fox-demon. "Did you bring me anything? Candy?" the kit asks.

"I'm sorry, Shippo. I haven't even got my bag."

"Why not?"

"I fell through the well on accident."

Sango lifts the kit off me and sets him in her lap. "Kagome is very ill, Shippo."

"Ohhhh." Shippo looks at me. "Are you feeling a little better?"

"Actually, Shippo," I answer him, "I'm feeling a lot better thanks to Kaede."

"What, do I get no recognition around here?" Inuyasha asks, dusting himself off.

"No," Miroku answers him.

"Why you," Inuyasha growls, nearly lunging over me to get his claws on Miroku. Literally.

I sit up very carefully and discover there is no more dizziness. Inuyasha forgets Miroku for a moment and supports me. I thank him with a silent acknowledgment with my eyes. He nods. "Where's Kaede?" I ask.

"She's getting herbs," Inuyasha answers. "Today is some special day or something where everything is more potent."

I rack my drained brain for the name of the day but it does not come. I shrug since everyone is looking to me for the title of this day since I am supposed to be a priestess' reincarnation and supposed to contain her knowledge. "Don't look at me. Inuyasha, could I lay down please?"

The hanyou had been holding me up on his own through my contemplative process and now he set me back down as gently as the day before. "Thank you," I tell him, and he looks away.

Kaede comes bustling in, her arms full of herbs. "Wow, full house," she mutters. "Reminds me that maximum capacity of this hut is five."

"Shippo, out," Inuyasha says.

"Kagome! He's being mean to me again!" The kit bursts out in tears.

"Inuyasha . . ."

"Okay, okay, Shippo can stay. Geeze, Kagome, I'd hate to see you on your feet this week. You'd be sitting me every five minutes." He looked so cute, all hurt and everything. His inu-ears are flat against his head, giving me the urge to tickle them so that they may stand correctly. I suppress the urge, or rather my limited muscle movement suppresses the urge.

"Kaede, when do you suggest I'll be ready to leave by?"

"Oh, give it a week, Kagome. You were so ill. I wouldn't leave anytime before."

I settle back down into my pillow on the mat and close my eyes. I hear Inuyasha ask the monk, kitsune, and slayer if they had anything better to do. The trio exit the hut silently, grasping his hint.

"Kagome? What was making you sick?"

I turned my head to look at Inuyasha. "Dreams. Bad dreams. Dreams of my father's death. Dreams of your death. What could go wrong after we find the missing shards to the Shikon Jewel. All of my dreams are about death and destruction."

"Why are you sick, though?"

"The dreams keep me awake, Inuyasha. For the human body to function properly we must have a number of hours to sleep each night. I haven't been getting that."

"Because of the dreams?"

"Yes."

He leans over me, staring into my eyes. I think he might just kiss me, but instead, he sniffs. "I smell your fear," he says simply, and rocks back onto his heels.

Anticipation had boiled so strongly in me from just imaging a sweet kiss that his actual actions set my anger ablaze. "INUYASHA! SIT BOY!"


	3. Revelations

Chapter 3

"INUYAHA! SIT BOY!"

After five minutes, Inuyasha is able to lift his head. "You're going to make a hole in the floor if you don't stop doing that for no reason."

"Oh, I had reason," I huff.

"Well, Kagome, I see you're doing much better," Kaede says, approaching my rest spot with a bowl of hot soup.

"I feel much better, Kaede. Thank you," I answer, reaching for the soup. Inuyasha snatches it from Kaede just when my fingertips had touched it and settles down next to. "What did you do that for, Inuyasha?"

"You've sat me twice today, Kagome. Do you honestly think I'm going to let you hold a bowl of soup with the risk that you might throw it at me?" He glanced down at the steaming yellow liquid. "Besides, this is a weapon. I don't like it when you have weapons. I don't even like it when you have that bow and those arrows. Who's to say that I won't tick you off during battle and you'll shoot me in the butt?"

"Lesson learned there." I answer him, longing for the soup, "don't tick me off during battle."

He grinned a little and dipped the spoon in the soup. "Open up, Kagome."

Well, that was humiliating, I think as I head out from the hut for the first time in what Kaede has told me three days. I feel grimy, so I ask Kaede if she may still have some robes that I can borrow.

After procuring a robe, I head down to the river at the base of the hill to bathe. Sango follows me on Inuyasha's orders. He doesn't want me to fall or pass out or drown. "He's such a worry-wart," I say out loud, not really meaning to.

"Worry-wart? What's that, Kagome?" Sango asks.

I contemplate an answer. "Oh, it's someone who worries all the time."

"You're talking about Inuyasha, aren't you?" the wise slayer asks.

"Yes, I am."

"He asked me to follow you because he cares about you."

I snort. I know that Inuyasha cares about me, but . . . Well, demons, and even half demons, aren't the most affectionate of characters.

We reach the river and I lose every bit of modesty I have. We both jump in.

"Why does she insist on having a bath today?" Inuyasha asks Miroku.

"Kagome likes to smell nice, and even I, the person who loves everything about women, thought she was getting a little rank." Miroku laughed a little. "At least when she comes back, she'll be in a better mood and smell excellent. I think I might just have to flirt."

Inuyasha growled at him, baring little fangs. "Okay, okay. Scratch that idea." Miroku studied Inuyasha's face, seeing how he grew a little sullen. _He must be think about Kagome_. "Why don't you stop being thick and just tell the girl you love her?"

That gets Miroku another growl. He laughs. "I'm not threatened by you, Inuyasha, because you know I am right."

Inuyasha ignores him. _Of course Miroku's right_, he thinks. _I do love Kagome, but I feel as if I am betraying Kikyo. I'm not really betraying her, though, because Kikyo is dead. This is so confusing. I can't wait until I am full-demon and don't have to worry about emotions. But then, if I am a full-demon, I'll hurt Kagome. I won't care though, because as a demon I won't have any feelings. Yet I care now, and now is what counts._

As if the gods were being ironic today, he heard Kagome and Sango laughing as they ran back to Kaede's hut.

"Ah!" I scream as Sango takes a swat at me with her towel. The stinging slap of the damp cloth leaves a red welt on my leg, identical to the one Sango wears on her arm. I take another swing with the cloth as we break free from the forest and into the bright sunlight of the clearing on the hill.

"Slow down, Kagome," Sango says between huffs of laughter.

"Keep up, Sango," I call. I continue running toward Kaede's hut, laughing the entire time as Sango tries to keep up with my pace.

Suddenly my flight from Sango stops as I crash into something hard and unmoving. I look up at what I ran into and see Inuyasha's amber eyes looking down at me, one black eyebrow raised as if in question.

"She swatted me," I tell him, smiling. I show him the back of my leg where the welt is beginning to go down. He kneels down to examine it.

"Did you get her back?" he asks. His voice is amazingly gentle. He runs his claws around the red mark, soothing it. My eyebrows jump up to my hairline.

"Y-Yes," I answer. He stands back up.

"Well," he says nodding, "that's good. Let's get back to the hut." He wraps his arm around my shoulders and leads me back to their camp.

When we reach camp, Kaede questions me about the dreams.

"Are they violent?"

"Yes."

"Have you had one while you have been here?"

"No."

"Hmm." Kaede takes out a book of demons. She flips it to a page that I cannot read for the Japanese is one of ancient times. "Do they involve your memories?"

"Yes."

"Death?"

"Yes."

She turns and looks at Inuyasha. "There's a dream demon near the well."


	4. Introducing the Dream Demon

Chapter 4

Kaede turns and looks at Inuyasha. "There's a dream demon near the well."

"A dream demon?" Inuyasha and I say at the same time.

"Yes," Kaede answers, nodding.

"What the hell is that?" Inuyasha asks.

Kaede reads from her book, "'The dream demon has no actual shape. It is just a presence. It can be defeated only by the one it attacks.'"

My face pales. I can literally feel the blood leave it. "What does that mean, Kaede?"

"You must allow it to attack you again, Kagome. You have to defeat it with your subconscious."

I gump. "Okay."

We stand around the well in silence. I look down into the dark depths, but Inuyasha jerks me back. "It's in there," he says.

"Really?" Shippo bounds up to the well's opening, but upon reaching the wooden structure surrounding the hole, he high-tails it back to his hiding place behind Sango and her demon-cat Kirara.

"I can smell it," Inuyasha says, sniffing the air. "He's malicious."

Just then a wicked laugh rises from the well. "Yes, he is," I agree with Inuyasha.

"You're going to have to sleep out here tonight, Kagome, and away from the protectiveness of my hut," Kaede tells me.

I take out my make-shift pack and unroll the matt and place the pillow on it. "Ready."

"Inuyasha, you should stay with her," Kaede says. "Sango and Miroku and I are only human. He'd prey on us if we stayed here with her. And Shippo's too young. You're the only one able to block him."

Inuyasha nods. "I'll stay."

The rest of the group trudges back to the hut, leaving Inuyasha and I alone.

"Are you okay, Kagome?"

I look up at him. "No."

He takes a seat on the map and motions to me to sit in his lap. He wraps his arms around me and I lay my head against his chest. A gust of wind blows, signaling that it is getting dark. The air blows our hair together, intertwining the black strands of mine with his silver locks.

Our closeness works like a sleeping aid to me. I begin to drift off. Just before I slip into unconsciousness, he whispers, "It'll be okay, Kagome. I'll protect you."


	5. Inuyasha's Subconscious Rescue

Chapter 5

"INUYASHA!" I scream. _I'm in a dream, I'm in a dream_, I tell myself, but it doesn't work. The massive black cloud comes near me, laughing evilly.

Suddenly Inuyasha appears, sailing through the air and toward the cloud, Tetsaiga drawn and on the attack. He disappears into the mass, and I see him fall to the ground beneath it. I run to him, totally unheeding of the fact that he is beneath the very thing I am terrified of. When Inuyasha is hurt, I fear nothing except his death.

I fall to my knees beside him. "Inuyasha?" I whisper, pulling a strand of hair away from his cheek. One of his amber eyes cracks open.

"Kagome?"

"I'm here, Inuyasha."

"I knew he was attacking you, Kagome. I had to interfere. I couldn't watch you battle him on your own."

"I know."

"I know how you have to defeat him, Kagome."

I place my hand on his soft cheek. "How?"

"You have to release your fears."

"But, Inuyasha, that means you'll die!"

"Your fear's not keeping me alive, Kagome. It's your fear that's killing me."

I look up at the swirling, cackling mass above us. "But-"

"No buts, Kagome. Do it. I need you to. I need you. I love you." Inuyasha passes into unconsciousness and I stand, knowing that I needed to work quickly.

He loved me. The knowledge filled me with enough strength to defeat twenty thousand demons. I'm no longer afraid of his death. I relive my father's death, and in the closure I find courage.

The black cloud recedes some. I think of my grandfather's death which will come in the future, and know he'll be happy.

The cloud shrinks to a tiny spot above us. The cackling fades away. I look at it now and wonder why I was ever afraid of it. The little black dot pops and a Shikon Jewel shard falls into my open palm.

Inuyasha wakes up from his unconsciousness. He wraps me in his arms and kisses me. Kisses me until I feel as though I am deaf, blind, and utterly stupid.


	6. Oh, How Things Can Change

Chapter 6

Inuyasha wakes up from his unconsciousness. He wraps me in his arms and kisses me. Kisses me until I feel as though I am deaf, blind, and utterly stupid.

I wake up with my lips upon Inuyasha's. Both our eyes pop open at the same time. I can see my brown irises reflected in his gold ones. _Oh my God, I am kissing Inuyasha!_ I'm so shocked that I hop off his lap and stare at him as he carefully gets up.

"Ummmm," he murmurs. "That was a . . . umm."

"That was an accident. I didn't mean to-"

He laughs, interrupting me. His laugh is husky, and oh-so-sexy. "I know you didn't. I kissed you." He takes a step toward me and I back away.

"Why?"

"Because."

"Did you mean what you said in my dream?"

He contemplates, and I am almost positive he'll go back to his callous self and say no, it was just a dream. "Yes."

My jaw drops, and he seizes my speechlessness as an opportunity. He presses his open mouth upon mine. My legs tremble and finally my knees give out. He catches me by wrapping his arm around my waist, and thrusts his free hand into my thick hair.

We finally break apart, knowing that something has obvious changed between us, within us. We stare into each others eyes, searching for that change.

Then I say, "I love you, too, Inuyasha," and reach for him.


End file.
